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West's major achievement here is not in the moments of significant pop-song creativity, but rather the response he's able to get from his listener, the lasting effect that, if previously pondered, seemed a substantially distant possibility.

When a band titles its debut Age of Winters and follows it up with a record called Gods of the Earth, the road's pretty much been paved for the kind of meal you're to be served. The dueling guitars, meaty, brimming with confidence, attack from all sides.

Bachmann decided to release Forfeit/Fortune himself, and while he is using internet outlets such as iTunes, the record's only available at specifically chosen indie retailers, not the big-box stores the masses might look to first. He insists he's just being practical.

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“I met him in Bloomington, right around 1997, when his first record came out,” Jason Evans Groth says. “I worked at the student radio station [at Indiana University] and I remember playing that record a lot. It seemed like otherworldly music to me. … So, when I found out it was him—I think a lot of people’s reaction when they saw Jason the first time was, ‘Jesus, it’s that guy?’ And the second thing is, he talks a lot.”

Like the majority of “Milk Money,” its longest track stubbornly develops a recognizable theme and rhythm. Listeners need patience to get there. The album’s cover might be a bit more concretely rooted in the world we all inhabit, but musically? It’s greatly transcendental moments of manipulated keys and surprising, dropped in edits.

“I had a quite clear visual image when I made that song,” Jacco Gardner says of “Cabinet of Curiosities.” “It’s from a time when dreams and reality came together in a way … like the first [explorers] who saw an elephant, and they made a drawing of it. It looked like a monster."

The current incarnation of Hawkwind, including dancers and a light crew, counts about ten people, all dedicated to crafting a stage show to extol the psychedelic virtues of the ensemble’s 1975 work. Brock refers to the album as “the last part of the jigsaw puzzle from the seventies.” And while it was the final album featuring Lemmy on bass, Hawkwind issued several additional long-players during that decade.

Honing in on sounds drawn from Jamaica invariably abut America’s jazz tradition. Drummer Ted Sirota’s more than vaguely familiar with both. But his estrangement from reggae and dub didn’t occur because of lacking fealty. The drummer just found himself more easily insinuated into jazz ensembles.